The Mitsubishi Pajero Owners Club®

[misterlog]

Hi all!
Been a voyeur and info user on here for a while and read many hundreds of posts, for which I thank all the contributors for. My own personal experience of this marque and model has been pretty poor to be honest. Bought this as a run around when I lived in the NW Highlands of Scotland and must`ve bought a duff one, `cos from what I`ve read most of you seem to love your cars. Patience by the bucket load...well not me. (I should`ve suspected something when I saw the reams of bills and invoices that masquerade as "service history", but no, you think all the problems have been sorted...oh how wrong a *beep* I was to think this).
Got my `96 Pajero Mk2 2.8 tdi lwb back in 2013 and done now about 7k miles and this car is rubbish! Drove it from Scotland to the Midlands when I moved and had everything crossed. The journey was fraught and tense with an overheating issue chucked in, in rush hour traffic that had me praying to my god and anyone elses`, come to think of it.
So far had to fork out on the 4 wheel drive solenoid, new calipers and discs, battery, starter motor, fuel pick up thing in the tank, pitman arm, some suspension bits and pieces, thermostat, radiator cap, glow plugs, servicing and the usual running costs. Had the fuel pump seal changed professionally back in November `16, used it once for a short hop to NEC motorcycle show and it conked out on me in the car park on the homeward bound trip. Spent an hour messing around with it and got home eventually after some pretty poor running. One day fine the next day not. It has refused to start since and no matter what I`ve done it`s not worked. Absolute waste of time and money, I must have been deluded when I bought it, it`s even worse than a Vito van I mistakenly bought and that`s saying something! I`ve got a Transit van, Volvo V70 and a VW Touareg all of which perform as they should except for this pile of junk. Next stop auto electrician and if that`s no good it`s away to the scrap yard where, frankl,y I think it belongs. Sorry for the rant but needed to get this off my chest...thank you, very over and very out.

[Google]

[peteinchad]

Sorry you had a bad experience - at over 20 years old there are a lot of bad ones out there.

If you get a good one then they are very good vehicles - but they still need quite a bit of TLC to keep them in good condition.

Hopefully the electrician will sort it for you.

[hutchy]

in a way i can sympathise but like pete said most of our trucks are knocking on or are over 20 year old...i work on a lot of cars regardless of make,and i have seen newer cars produced that are only a few years old have loads of issues,most of it down to cheap mass production,and cheap materials used..the amount of faults i have had and mine is 20 year old is quite long but some other makes i know are a lot longer....

[Jutwit]

Any car make or model that's 20 + years old will need things changed, things wear out, I've changed more than that on mine, and I'm about to change all the suspension, wishbones , ball joints, etc, but I use mine for laneing, it's got 109k miles, 23 years old and I paid 700 quid for it. Lots of bits can be repaired instead of replaced, calliper so foe example, but if your taking it into a garage they will just change bits for an easier life, and it will cost a lot, as for your fuel pump seal, was it done correctly and using the right parts? Plus if you've done all that already there isn't much left to do. Might be worth dropping a message to mark 3 on here, very highly regarded for working on these old beasts

[Simon_W]

I hope the electrician can sort it out, but if that's not possible please don't scrap it! There may well be people on here who would take it on as a project, particularly if the chassis is sound.

These were expensive cars when new, so running them at 20 years old is going to be costly unless you can do the work on them yourself.  It's just not economical to pay hourly garage rates, as the bills will soon approach or exceed the value of the vehicle.

[NJV6]

Ha ha crack up, this guy thinks he can buy a cheap car and not have to spend any money then rubbishes it!

[Pajero James]

Whether it's a £1K or £10K motor I am buying or being brought to assess for some one else I will scrutiny to the last. You can't just buy something because it's got a stack of receipts. Did you op get any one to look it over or did you do it yourself?
The brake discs number 1 they are a very visual item that you can see through the alloy, you should have taken those into account, pads and a calliper or two as if pads run low I have seen time and time again a boot splitting and corrosin on a piston.
It's difficult to do a full suspension and steering assessment when buying but very easily is get someone to steer left and right slowly and you can feel play in pitman arm, idler arm, track ends etc.
Did you not test the 4wd system out in full before you bought it that you had to buy solenoid? Was the truck warmed up that you had to buy glow plugs? You should always view when cold and see a cold start up and drive. That buyer had glow plug issue masked and early days of a pump seal also.
You definitely bought a project truck in my opinion, you had a seller who played you but ultimately it was yourself that is in the wrong here.

[kenthepipe]

I think the OP , is just giving us all a polite "put down"  

[peteinchad]

[Mitsurobbo]

They're old pieces of machinery. Yes, they wind you up with odd smells, cut outs, clunks and grinding noises like old people. But you don't expect them to be winning any Triathlon competitions any time soon. The thing that actually winds me up the most is fallacies and lore that surround cars. Yes, there are some truths in them but its mostly rubbish perpetuated by marketing groups and used car salesmen to sell cars. I had 2 BMW's in my 20's. I was told 'German Engineering, the best'... But i had a 3 series that the chassis literally tore away from the metal in the boot area which required extensive welding and a 5 series that was plagued with niggles such as a fuel leak in the engine bay, burning oil, wiper motors packing in and finally the diff exploded. But then i had an Alfa Romeo 146 2 litre TS that never put a foot wrong that i regretfully part chopped for a larger car for my expanding family...

Do yourself a favour if you will, go look on a forum like this of cars you were told that were the epitome of reliability. A Land Cruiser for example of a similar age, you often hear this one. Look at all the problems people have and then compare with this forum, you start to realise that old cars are really not all that different, despite what your mates down the pub had told you about ones reliability...

[trekker]

Quote......... "Nothing there is abnormal, if something has been neglected of course it is going to cost more, that's why I replace things as they happen, last time I checked it was called regular maintenance."   :lol: Dead right.

I have covered around 200 000 km in my MK1, much of this off road as it's not our daily runner.  Whatever I can find amiss, and I search for such, even a squeak in the suspension, I attend to it without delay, replacing any suspect part before it catches me out.

At the mo my wife and I are 2000 km away from home, spent 5 days in Kruger NP, will be using the truck here for the next 4 weeks and then 7 days again in Kruger on the way home. Never missed a beat so far, and this is what I expect.

If you buy junk, that's what you'll have until you bring it up to a good standard, or sell it.

[kenthepipe]

[Simon_W]

[hutchy]

that,s what they were built for in the first place....enjoy and have a good time,wish i was going i could do with a break

[trekker]

Thank you guys, I do appreciate your kind comments.